Complete Works of J. M. Barrie

by Unknown

  Here is something to my credit. So anxious was President Wilson to have every one in America, including visitors, ‘neutral’ about the war that the reporter found I had enjoined Brown to be neutral on all other subjects as well, ‘to express no preferences on matters of food, for instance, and always to eat oysters and clams alternately, so that there can be no ill-feeling. Also to walk in the middle of the street lest he should seem to be favouring either side-walk, and to be very cautious about admitting that one building in New York is higher than another. I assured him that the Woolworth Building was the highest, but he replied politely that he was sure the President would prefer him to remain neutral.’

  In a final quotation Brown seems to have risen almost to the dignity of a prophet. ‘It was pleasant to find that Brown has not a spark of sympathy with those who say that because Germany has destroyed art treasures in Belgium and France the Allies should retaliate with similar rudeness if they reach Berlin. He holds that if for any reason best known to themselves (such as the wish for a sunnier location) the Hohenzollerns should by and by vacate their present residence, a nice villa should be provided for them, and that all the ancestral statues in the Sieges-Allee should be conveyed to it intact and perhaps put up in the back garden. There the Junkers could drop in of an evening on the way home from their offices and chat pleasantly of old times.’

  I have said that Roosevelt was among those deceived by this sketch. He was an entrancing personality, but such a talker that, though I spent a day with him at Oyster Bay on a mission connected with the war, I could not, as the saying goes, get in a word. The last I saw of him he was running and talking alongside the little carriage that took me to the station. Gradually we outdistanced his voice.

  The copy of this old article I now possess reached me curiously enough from Arctic regions whither it was sent me by Stefansson, the famous explorer. I did not know him then (and I wish I knew him now), but it had somehow reached him among the eternal snow and he sent it to me in London thinking I had probably not seen it. Brown and I have sometimes discussed this article and wondered who could have written it. That is all very well, but how am I now to be able to present him with a copy of this book?

  As for being ‘interviewed,’ my only boast is that I was never interviewed in my life.

  CHAPTER XIX

  “OF SHORTER HEROES AND HEROINES WHO ROLL” — ANON’S FINAL WAIL ABOUT HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE

  “HEROES in fiction are longer this year than ever. I take the average to be six feet two, which is three-quarters of an inch longer than for the preceding nine months. May I ask you lady novelists when is this to stop? Why have you never tried a short hero? It has been established since the time of William Rufus that short men have souls, are subject to impression from the other sex, are eligible for clubs, and marry as openly as their longer brethren. Why must they be inadmissible? That short men figure in your novels I, of course, know, but they are only there that the hero may look over their heads. Two young men constantly appear together in your opening pages, and we know which is to be the hero as soon as we have their measurements. ‘The shorter of the two,’ you begin, and at once you have written his epitaph: ‘Much respected but not long enough.’ It is permitted him to be a good son and amorous, but never may he gather her up or bite her in the neck. The shorter man may have wealth, in which case, my poor fellow, you will have to die and leave it to the lady. I know what you novelists will reply: that for the work a hero has to do a long man is necessary. You are referring to the bull, the mill-pond, the runaway carriage-horses, the fire, and the chalk-pit. I don’t ask you to do without these, for I understand they are the load all your tribe must carry, but I see no reason why you should not try occasionally a short sturdy man. Short men are as quick on their legs as long ones, and could as easily snatch her from the bull. The mere fact of his waterproof being of a smaller size than the long man’s need not prevent his flinging it round the animal’s head. Why should it always be the longest spectator who dives after her? Short men can swim. A stout young hero, though short, could throw himself at runaway horses; he could run up the ivy of the burning house at least as quickly as a long fellow, whose legs (however dark you may keep this) would really be in the way; if his horse is short to suit, there is no reason why he should not overtake the lady’s palfrey just as it is about to leap into the chalk-pit.

  You smile at me as an outsider, who has forgotten the hero’s most important qualification.

  I have not forgotten it, nor shall I attempt to make light of it. I am aware that when he has vanquished the bull, the horses, the mill-wheel, and the tongues of flame, he has only waxed the floor for action. He must next convey her to a place of safety. There is the rub for the short man. Yet there must be a knack of carrying her which a short man could acquire with a few lessons as well as his betters. Also he need not carry her so very far. Why tell the actual distance? But, you say, she would know wherein he was wanting when he asked her the question that has been asked hundreds of thousands of times, yet is ever new. I forget what the question is, but why should not he know? He could even elongate himself for the moment. As he gathers her up and showers hot kisses on her you imply that he will gasp sooner than his long friend. Rightly considered, however, would not this prove him a truer hero than that other who gathers her as easily as he lights a Regalia Rothschild Havana? Surely the more he pants the grander the figure he presents.

  Now we come to your heroines, and alas we must also chide you about them. I mean for the way in which, when Long Legs coldly leaves the lady, she rolls in agony along the floor. Heroines have always tended to cast themselves upon the floor in supreme moments, but they are rolling on it this year. In real life women, however lovely, and however long he is in the legs, are surely not quite so regardless of their persons and their garments.

  I notice that she is nine times in ten a married woman, perhaps to give her an acquaintance that cannot be expected from the sweetest maiden, with rugs and carpets and battered floors. The most extraordinary thing about her and her husband, the Earl, is that they are madly, wildly, screamingly in love, but neither knows it about the other. She discovers as they leave the church that he has married her for her money (the sort of thing only the short fellows do); or he discovers that some other long one once saved her from the sinking ship, and after that the twain hate, hate, hate. They meet, however, at dances in their own house, and in the conservatory he takes her by the throat, with the wild hoarse passion of long ones, and asks her to dance with him, her husband, once. She draws her figure up until like him she almost dents the ceiling, and implies with her ripe hair in his eyes that if he dares to touch her waist she will change its place on her person. No sooner has the door closed on him than she moans ‘Dicky, my Dicky,’ and begins to roll across the floor. Back and forward she rolls, back and forward, and any shorter man’s heart would be touched to see her thus. Dicky, however, does not see her; we are not always told what he is doing on these occasions, but he has probably quickly kicked off his shoes and found solace in measuring himself in his stocking soles. The Dickies always measure themselves in their stocking soles, an extra fling at shorter men who before measuring put on their boots.

  There is not much told about the domestics (except the male ones) in these novels, but they must be in the background, and they are capable maids too, such as you authoresses perhaps sigh for in vain yourselves. For long hours they must be kept sweeping the rooms where the heroine is to roll, so that she may do it without ruining her confection. The floors must be padded or some sharp ear would hear her fall. Yet though the proficient may roll softly it must wear out the carpets in time, which entails heavy after-hours’ work on the toilers who make carpets. There is always some member of the working classes who suffers for the rollings of the aristocracy.

  The girls who are the wives of earls (for whatever the length of him may be she is still his wife) can afford to dress extravagantly. Knowing their ways their maid has doubtless a
change of garments always in readiness, and no doubt she benefits by the rolling, for she presumably gets their bursting gowns. On the whole, therefore, the more her ladyship rolls the better for the poorer classes.

  I would point, however, to two kinds of readers to whom her behaviour is a little trying. First, there are the readers of her own sex, gentlewomen but comparatively poor, who in the end have to put up with men of five feet six. They try to copy the aristocrats of the floor, and I ask you to conceive the effect upon the purse of an ordinary professional man of a daughter who takes to rolling. She would have to put off her roll (thus spoiling the frenzy) till she hurriedly changed into a last year’s frock, or she must limit herself to one roll in a season. It is said that whether titled or damned, young ladies prefer one big dance to ever so many little ones, and in the same way perhaps they would rather roll once in silk than weekly in merino.’ If the readers were young wives like the heroine, not so wealthy but just as fond of a bit of romance, their case would be still more parlous, for they might roll their husbands out of house and home in three months. Your heroines have no responsibility, they have housekeepers and that sort of thing instead; and their husband, the long Earl, can grow hoarser and hoarser without dropping an inch. The everyday man, on the other hand, must do his work, though he is as hoarse as a crow; and when she is practising the new roll his wife ought to be upstairs sewing neatly. It must be easy again for a countess to set apart a room for rolling in, and her husband in the gunroom be never the wiser. In a small house, however, there are no such spare rooms. Consider the distress of a newly married man when he comes home from his honeymoon (which he has had to take alone) and finds his wife rolling in her wedding-dress. For the good of the middle-class public, therefore, you might persuade your brats to set an example in economy. Insist on their having one frock for rolling in, some garment into which they can simply leap. The Countess, I notice, often changes to suit her passions, red velvet being the most popular for Revenge, and corded silk slightly open at the throat for Broken Heart; but our daughters must roll at some cheaper figure.

  Yet let us end on a happier note. Your heroines are not only delightful company but prove that the ripe young matrons of Mayfair are more robust than the Harley Street specialists approve. I question if there are many charmers of the middle class who could roll in such pretty disorder without feeling the strain.”

  IN short, Mr. Anon, that man of secret sorrows, found it useless to love, because, after a look at the length and breadth of him, none would listen. Unable to get a hearing in person, which is probably the more satisfactory way when feasible, he discussed the tender passion with them, as you might say, by deputy or in a mask; in other words, he wrote many articles on the subject of love and the passions that purported to come from perturbed undergraduates or haughty lieutenants, by whom women readers, assuming them to be of the proper dimension, were variously stirred. These young gentlemen wrote, as authorities, of what love should be and in the case of women was not; so that they roused many indignant damsels to the frenzy of reply. Mr. Anon had the elation of feeling that Woman listened to him at last, if only at second hand, and that at second hand he may even have made her roll. Like two or three other articles here this appeared in the ‘Speaker,’ edited by Wemyss Reid, which is chiefly remembered now, I suppose, by the early writings of ‘Q.’

  CHAPTER XX

  “A LOVELETTER” — THE COW-WOMAN

  I AM the lovely aunt (quite lovely) of Tommy aged seven and May aged six, and for the last hour I have been sitting in an open-air arbour trying to write a letter to a warrior. He has demanded of me to say Yes or No, and I do hate being flurried. On top of the arbour Tommy and May sprawl, unseen, save for an occasional leg whose knee is bandaged (May’s) or lately let loose (Tommy’s), and they are unaware that their talk comes between me and my effort for the army. Around us is a wild garden of golden broom.

  ‘I know who Auntie is writing a letter to,’ says Tommy.

  ‘So do I know,’ says May. (Possibly she does know.)

  ‘No, you don’t.’ (He certainly does not.) ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘If you knew who it was you would say.’

  ‘So would you.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, by jingo.’

  ‘You are using bad words, Tommy.’

  ‘Jingo is not a swear; it is what Captain Abinger says.’ (Captain Abinger says worse than that; I had better say No to him.)

  ‘Auntie wouldn’t say it.’ (Well, she wouldn’t have done so three months ago, before she knew Captain Abinger.)

  ‘It is men that say it, not muffy ladies.’

  ‘Auntie is not a muffy lady.’ (Darling May.)

  ‘If you don’t say she is muffy I won’t sit with you.’

  ‘She is rather muffy.’ (Oh, May.)

  ‘Bill knows who Auntie is writing to, but I’m not going to tell.’ (So he got it from Bill the coachman.)

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Because you don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You needn’t think I am going to tell you.’

  After a pause.

  ‘She is writing a letter to her husband,’ says Tommy.

  ‘Auntie isn’t, for she is not married, and if she is not married she can’t have a husband.’ (How girls do pick up the important things.)

  ‘Yes, she can. That is all you know. Auntie has a ring on her finger, and that shows she is married.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, Tommy.’

  ‘Shut up with your Tommy. Bill says only mollycoddles are called Tommy. If you don’t call me Thomas I shall go away.’

  At this awful threat May nearly falls through the roof. ‘Thomas, then. But Auntie is not married.’

  ‘Yes, she is. Did you not see the ring?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she is married. Boys don’t know about these things.’ (How true. And besides, though I do happen to have a ring, the question at present gnawing my vitals is whether I should enclose it in my letter or keep it for aye. Be quiet, you imps, and let a woman think.)

  ‘Don’t they!’ exclaims Thomas. ‘Why, if it wasn’t that men offered to marry them, ladies wouldn’t never be married at all. Ladies can’t offer to marry men. Bill told me.’

  ‘Auntie’s not married.’

  ‘She couldn’t have a ring if she wasn’t, stupid. Bill says if you throw away the ring, then you are not married any more; and when Bill’s wife gets cheeky he takes it off her finger and pretends to throw it away so as to frighten her.’ (That horrid Bill; and I had always thought him so superior.)

  ‘Auntie has four rings.’

  ‘I know that. It means she has been married four times.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, Thomas. The old lady that spoke to us in the boat had a heap more rings than four on her fingers.’

  ‘Yes, because she had a heap of husbands. They are called widowers.’

  ‘I know what Auntie is,’ says May, triumphant. ‘She is not married; she is engaged.’

  Tommy’s legs kicked, which told me that he was thinking.

  ‘It was engaged I said,’ was the result of his thoughts. ‘The four rings means she has been engaged four times.’

  ‘Oh, Tommy!’ The abandoned little May uttered it with rapture.

  ‘I only said married so as to trick you,’ continued Tommy. ‘But it is all the same, engaged or married.’

  ‘No, it’s not the same.’

  After further reflection Tommy retorts, ‘Who said it was the same?’

  ‘You did, Tommy — Thomas.’

  ‘It was you said it.’

  ‘How could it be the same thing when it is not?’

  ‘I know what the difference is.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘But I’m not going to tell.’

  ‘Neither am I going to tell, Thomas.’

  ‘If you knew you would say it.’

  ‘Auntie told me herself.’ (Such a whopper.) ‘If you tell me, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘W
ell, then, you are engaged first and then you are married after.’

  ‘That is what I said, May. And you are engaged as long as the man likes.’

  ‘No, as long as the woman likes.’ (Dear May.) ‘That is all you know, May. The man gives the lady the ring to be engaged with, and then if she is good he marries her, but if she isn’t good he takes it back.’

  ‘If he is not good, it is she won’t marry him.’

  ‘Yes, she must, May. Ladies only get married if they are good; but men get married whether they are good or not.’ He kicked triumphantly.

  ‘That is not fair,’ says May in the voice of one who nevertheless feels that Tommy may know.

  ‘Yes, it is. Ladies don’t have nothing to do but be good; but men need to be only middling good. Men can say swears sometimes, but not ladies.’

  ‘Papa never says them.’

  ‘Oho: he did yesterday when the door hit his face. He said—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear. Was it awful?’

  ‘I told Bill, and he said it was a good one.’

  ‘I know the gentleman Auntie is engaged to,’ says May, probably feeling that she is not scoring.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Who is it, then?’

  ‘Look here, May, if you tell me I’ll give you my football.’

  ‘But it is lost.’

  ‘Well, I’ll give it to you if we find it. Come on, who is Auntie engaged to?’

  ‘It is Captain Abinger.’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘Honest Injin. He is very nice.’

  ‘He is awfully decent. But engaged to Auntie! I say, does he know?’

  ‘Course he knows, and he likes it.’ (If they would only dry up and let me think whether I like it.)

  ‘Will she be his auntie when they are married?’

  ‘No, she will be his wedding wife; but just think, Tommy, he will be our uncle!’

  ‘Lumme!’

  ‘I am to be a bridesmaid, Tommy. (First I have heard of this.)